Labor and women"s nutrition : a study of energy expenditure, fertility, and nutritional status in Ghana

African women tend to spend a relatively higher proportion of their time performing physically demanding tasks, with relatively less leisure time, due mainly to their central role in agricultural production and distribution, and a lack of labor-saving devices. This study uses household survey data from Ghana to examine the determinants of the nutritional status of adult women; its main contribution lies in exploiting time-use data to estimate the contribution of individual energy expenditure differentials in determining nutritional status. A secondary focus of the analysis is the role of fertility in women"s malnutrition, i.e., whether rapid reproductive cycling contributes to a "maternal depletion syndrome." Results show that the physically demanding work performed by Ghanaian women in agriculture and possibly also in food processing (e.g., pounding roots to make fufu), has a significantly negative effect on their nutritional status, suggesting that labor-saving devices may have as direct an impact on nutrition as increased food consumption. Ghanaian women"s high fertility rate, in concert with disease and inadequate health care and nutrient availability, also take a measurable toll, highlighting the nutritional importance of education for women and of family planning programs. Includes references.